


Dandelions

by masongirl



Series: Fluences [3]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Emotions, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oblivious, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Soulmates, Synesthesia, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25737904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masongirl/pseuds/masongirl
Summary: Sometimes, when his desperation reaches its limit, Tab thinks his soulmate is the most unpredictable man in the entire battalion.Soulmate AU in which soulmates can sense each other's emotions if they are close enough.
Relationships: George Luz/Joseph Toye, Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Shifty Powers/Floyd Talbert
Series: Fluences [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633723
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Dandelions

**Author's Note:**

> I had a surge of inspiration and wrote this over one night. I hope you guys will enjoy it! :)

As Smokey finishes his poem with great flare, Tab feels a lurch in his gut that reminds him of the night Smith stabbed him. His vision blurs, then a watery pink hue trickles into the corners, like blood washed away by rainfall. Everyone's laughing around him, but he tries to search for him anyway. As usual, it's futile. He can't pinpoint the source, so he grunts in disappointment and blinks, and the fluence is gone. Only the echo of the emotion remains.

**Concerned.**

_Disappointed,_ Tab attempts to send, but he thinks it might have come out as _frustrated_ instead. He's terrible at this, and it crushes the confidence he worked years to build. There was a reason why he had so many affairs and flirted his way through all those wide open hearts. He was looking for the one, the person destined to be his partner for life, and he knew that sex was the surest way to receive the first fluence. No one blocks the connection when they fall down the ravine of pleasure.

 **Bashful,** his soulmate replies, **curious?**

Tab has to resist the urge to hit himself. What the hell did he send now? It must have been inappropriate. His soulmate is a man after all - they must not want to listen in on his feelings while he revisits his juicy memories. _Sorry,_ he sighs. This, he practised enough to communicate without a hitch.

*

The first time he heard him, they were crawling through mud, dead flies, pig guts and whatnot, a repulsive mess, and Tab's soulmate thought, **sad.** It was bluer than Betsy's eyes had been the night before and came with the sensation of an anvil dropped on Tab's chest. How could his soulmate feel such sorrow? Everywhere Tab looked, all he saw was disgust, anger and resentment towards that bastard Sobel. No one thought to shed a tear for the animals slaughtered for that training exercise. At least, that's what Tab figured as the reason for his soulmate's pain.

He spent the next day trying to make himself feel as deeply as he could, even tearing up at one point. The hint of bitterness he felt because he had a man for a soulmate was wiped away by his growing excitement and curiosity. He watched the fellas' faces, on the lookout for a mirror of his own emotions, but no one gave him a sign. The only notable moment of the day was Shifty's nausea, a stomach bug or something. They found him kneeling by his cot, forehead pressed to the mattress and arms cradling his head.

"You okay, Shifty?" Lipton asked and crouched down to put a hand on his back.

"I'm mighty miserable, Lip." Shifty said mournfully. "I don't think I can stomach anything today."

"Have a sip of water, at least." Lip sighed and pushed his own canteen into Shifty's hand, earning himself a grateful smile. Tab's soulmate stayed silent all day and for the next six months after that. All Tab heard was the buzz of blocked fluences far beyond his reach.

*

Sometimes, when his desperation reaches its limit, Tab thinks his soulmate is the most unpredictable man in the entire battalion. His emotions are all over the place, often completely removed from the situation around them. That's what makes it so very frustrating for Tab - he doesn't have the slightest idea who the guy is. He tried everything he could think of, but to no avail. The most he managed was excluding people who could not possibly be _him._

All the bonded pairs, Smokey, Lipton, Shifty's weird friends, McClung and Popeye, he scratched them off the list pretty quickly. He ruled Shifty out too after a Saturday night he spent dancing and drinking with his buddies in Georgia. There was a constant flow of negative feelings coming through the connection that evening, but they were miles away from the base - no way could a fluence have spanned that distance. Tab reckoned his soulmate must have been among the men he went out with.

Luz seemed like the most viable possibility. He was very vocal about his dysfunctional connection, and Tab had a growing suspicion that his pitiful attempts to communicate failed, since he had no clue how to send anything. He was a mess. Still is.

"Hey, Luz." He croaked out at the bar after they got their jump wings. "I don't really know how to say this, but… What if I'm your soulmate?"

Luz gave him a dubious once-over, which was galling enough to make Tab regret ever entertaining the idea, but then, Luz shrugged, tilted his head and leaned closer over the counter. "We can test it. Do you feel anything?"

Tab did his best to concentrate, to open his mind, honest. But Luz's stare was too intense, it was unbearable, the way it spread a flush of discomfort over Tab's cheeks. He glanced at their friends instead, all caught up in their rowdy joy. Winters and Nixon huddled together in the corner, lost in their own world. Smokey was busy regaling a small crowd with another tall tale of his, and Toye was choking on his drink while Guarnere slapped his back. A sound drifted into Tab's ears, almost like leaves swishing in a hot summer breeze, and his eyes fell on McClung, Popeye and Shifty, all laughing into their drinks. He forced his gaze back to Luz, and felt a bubbly sensation bursting in his chest like a hiccup. **Joy.**

He scratched his head. "Um, did you send me a joke?"

Luz snorted and shifted back on his feet. His smile was a little bittersweet. "It's not you, Floyd."

*

"Why the long face?" Smokey yells over the rumble of their aircraft on the way to Holland. "Your sweetheart acting up again?" He teases.

"Ha-ha." Tab replies darkly, but doesn't deny it. 

When Lip asked around about bonded pairs the other day, he didn't say a word, because Christ, is there anything he knows besides the fact that someone in the company lives in a parallel world? This time, his soulmate got a melody stuck in his head, something sweet and peaceful that sounds like peach cobblers. _How does he even do that?_ Sometimes, Tab wonders if the man has a knack for making his senses all jumbled up or if it's the same for everyone. Perhaps the saying is true and soulmates _are_ opposites, because in this unbalanced connection, Tab is all but an illiterate scratching gibberish on paper while his soulmate is a writer. _Annoyed,_ he shoots and receives an immediate reply. **Apologetic.** It sinks into Tab's heart like a cast pebble after its last skip on the water.

It reminds him of their last day on the ship crossing the ocean. He had already given up on his search by that time and told himself that it would happen when it's meant to. He was getting a steady flow of **calm** since he lay down in the bunk he was forced to share with Shifty and he let his eyes close to follow the fluences into a daydream of forests, meadows and birdsong. If it wasn't for the insufferable noise of another brawl between Guarnere and Liebgott, he would have fallen asleep. 

"Let's go up on deck." He nudged Shifty instead of trying to ignore the ruckus. "I need some fresh air."

Shifty's lips curled into a smile. "Peach of an idea."

Upstairs, they leaned on the railing side-by-side and watched the vast blue water ahead, squinting to try and spot the first glimpse of England and somewhere beyond, the dark smoke of war. The waves whispered foreboding secrets into the salty wind.

"That's a fine sight to see." Shifty murmured, and their elbows touched. 

They shared a look, and Tab found his eyes linger. He couldn't tear them away. It may have been the long time of abstinence behind him, but there, for one moment, he desired things no decent man should. His heart tumbled and beat double by mistake as Shifty's eyes flicked down to his boots, then back at Tab's face shyly.

**Scared. Excited. Scared. Pining.**

The sudden barrage of fluences yanked Tab out of his reverie, and his gaze dropped from Shifty's, leaving those second-hand emotions to fly far away like the white seeds of a dandelion blown into the wind.

*

Eindhoven is a beautiful town, and Tab loves it, the happiness, the food, the girls, everything, no matter how cold his soulmate's **pity** is. Why is it so bad that these people want to celebrate in relief? Why should anyone feel guilty for joining them? Tab surely doesn't. He has a beautiful girl on his lap and plump lips pressed to his own. There's nothing more he needs to bask in a fleeting moment of _happiness._

Then red smoke coils into his throat and draws a groan to his mouth. **Jealous. Angry. Frustrated.**

"God." Tab closes his eyes to curse at himself for a moment. _You know_ _who I am?_ He pushes the girl away and glances around, but only Shifty seems to be looking at him, and he smiles innocently when Tab's eyes meet his. He can't be _him_ anyway, Tab knows that. No one's able to hit their soulmate with a fluence from miles away, it would be out of their range. Maybe it's Peacock? But no, the lieutenant wasn't there in Toccoa. Clueless, Tab walks over to Shifty and slings an arm around his shoulders. He continues scanning the crowd.

"How do you like Holland, Shift?"

Shifty leans into him and takes a deep breath. "Well, it seems a pleasant place to me."

The fluences battering Tab's mind pick up and mellow out until the colours of a crisp dawn splash across the connection. There's a scent too, but he can't decide whether it's his own smell or something coming from his soulmate. There's a sweet undertone of **contentment** in it though, so Tab decides the guy probably doesn't know who he is after all, just wanted a girl for himself too. They move out again, and he doesn't have a chance to contemplate it any further. The link closes as soon as they are under fire again.

*

It's not until Bastogne, where nothing seems impossible anymore, that he looks at Shifty, truly looks at him, and realizes what a fool he's been. If there's one person who can conquer any distance to reach his soulmate, it's him. What an absolute idiot Tab is for never once considering that. He wishes he could smack himself. **Baffled,** he receives and feels like he suddenly swallowed an entire pine tree. All his senses are filled with the smell and how he imagines its acidic taste, and there Shifty is, frowning ahead at the foggy forest, stock-still. His mind is racing so loudly that Tab hears it - it's the clear sound of a breath sucked in. 

**Suspicious,** the feeling wobbles, then spreads into bone-rattling **alarm.** Shifty runs over to him and grabs his collar.

"Go, get Buck!"

Turns out that Shifty can spot a single fallen tree in that endless, cruel forest and knows if it was there the other day or not. When the disguised German artillery piece is blown to pieces, the whole unit bursts into muted cheers and whoops, and Tab gets a hushed wave of **pride,** then ink-black, wet **grief** and **guilt.** Shifty slides into his foxhole with a heavy slump and covers his eyes with a gloved palm.

With his heart in his throat, Tab jumps in beside him. "Shifty?"

 **Affection** clinks in their connection as Shifty looks up and smiles. "Yes?"

Tab's lungs falter. "Is it really you?"

He kneels on the ground and fists his hands in Shifty's jacket, slowly because he's frozen inside and out, suspended on the brink. Could it be? 

Shifty flings himself into Tab's arms and shakes from **exhaustion**. "Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."Shifty repeats and sends **relieved** like a tentative caress as they squeeze each other tighter. "I thought you'd never notice."

"I'm sorry it took me this long." Tab sighs and curses himself over and over again. Shifty's lean body fits perfectly in his arms, a warm and solid weight that chases all his fears away. His chest aches. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You wished for someone different, I heard." Shifty sniffs. "I never wanted to disappoint no one."

Tab knows he could deny what he used to project in the beginning, but empty words won't make up for such a thing. He focuses everything he has on one emotion, the _fondness_ he has always felt for his soulmate even in his most annoying moments, and pushes that through to the other side. "Hey, Shift."

"Yes?" **Hopeful,** comes Shifty's fidgety reply.

"I know I'm a lousy soulmate, but I'm willing to learn."

Shifty's quiet laugh glitters in Tab's mind like morning dew on a wildflower.

_~End~_

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated. :)


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